Professor I'll Love Forever
by Jeanie205
Summary: To celebrate Bob's win in the Alpha Male contest, I thought Bellamy should have a contest of his own. A modern AU, in which Octavia has entered Bellamy in a contest in which he really, really doesn't want to participate. Oh, and Clarke is around,too. In fact, it's all told from her point of view.


**A/N: A huge thank you to Nell65 for educating me on the politics of academia and faculty hierarchy. Without her expert input, this story would have been riddled with mistakes.**

It was a miracle, really, that Clarke even heard her phone buzzing. Sometimes, when she was really in the groove, when the light was just right and all she could focus on was the canvas in front of her, she forgot there was a world outside her studio. But she'd stopped for a moment to consider whether the gnawing in her stomach might actually be hunger when the insistent buzzing began.

When she saw the name _Bellamy_ flash across her screen, a mixture of curiosity and something else - something she couldn't name, but which might, if pushed, be classified as _delight_ \- made her glad she hadn't missed this call. Bellamy almost never called in the middle of the day.

"Hel..." But that's as far as she got.

"You'll never believe what the hell she's done now!" he barked out.

Clarke felt the corners of her mouth tug up as she found a space on her cluttered couch and sat down with her phone call. _She_ could refer only to Bellamy's sister Octavia.

"What's Octavia been up to now?" she asked, unable to keep the amusement from her voice. "Opened a tattoo parlor? Run away to join a group of warrior assassins?" She paused delicately. "Found a new boyfriend?"

"Worse!" he snarled.

Clarke laughed. "Worse than the warrior assassins or the new boyfriend?"

"Clarke, I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Bellamy complained, his voice becoming petulant.

"Well, I might, if I knew what the hell you were talking about."

"Oh, right. Well..." he paused, then resumed tightly, "she's entered me in a contest."

"Oh? What, like a trivia contest?" No one could deny that Bellamy was fantastic at trivia. The number of facts, useful or otherwise, relevant or otherwise, that he had stored in his brain was truly phenomenal. He was definitely the man to beat on trivia nights at their favorite bar.

Bellamy sighed. "I wish. Maybe it's not too late to get them to switch it to a trivia contest."

Clarke's head was beginning to spin. "Switch what, Bellamy?"

She actually heard his swallow on the other end of the line. "It's a...a Campus PILF contest?"

"A _what?_ What's a pilf?"

"It's like...you've heard of MILF, right? Well, this is like that, but just switch out the _mother_ for _professor_ , and I think you get the idea."

"Oh," she said. " _Oh_." Clarke was truly nonplussed. Not a single response leaped to mind, but suddenly she had a hard time suppressing a giggle. A giggle that she was sure Bellamy would NOT appreciate.

"Yeah," he said dispiritedly, sighing again. "It's a Greek thing."

" _Greek?"_ Clarke was more confused than ever. "But isn't your expertise ancient Rome?"

"No, Clarke, not _that_ kind of Greek." His tone was resigned. "It's a sorority thing. For charity. And Octavia's sorority chose me as their candidate. I wonder where they got _that_ idea?" he added sourly.

"What's the charity," she asked, happy to at last have something familiar to grab onto.

She could picture his shrug. "Don't know, never got that far." He paused. "I suppose I should find out."

"You know, Bellamy, maybe this is not such a terrible thing. You'll help raise funds for some worthy cause. Besides, if it's only the Greek community, maybe it won't even get much play around campus."

Clarke was making every attempt to be supportive, but in truth she didn't think it sounded like such a big deal.

" _Not much play_? Yeah, I wish! They're plastering pictures of all the...uh...candidates on a big board in the Student Union, as well as online on the school's website."

Bellamy huffed his dismay at being thus exposed.

She was more than a little amused, but Clarke knew her duty as a friend.

"So how can I help, Bellamy?" Her voice was tentative because she couldn't imagine why he'd called her with news.

"Yeah, well..." Bellamy paused. "I was thinking maybe you could to talk to Octavia, get her to change her mind. Maybe find some other poor sap to humiliate."

"Change her mind? This is Octavia we're talking about here. When does she ever change her mind?"

His sigh was so deep this time it could almost have been classified as a shudder. "Yeah, I know," he said. "She's the stubbornest person who ever lived."

Clarke bit her tongue to prevent a rejoinder like ' _present company excepted_ ', instead suggesting, "Of course, you could just tell her you won't do it."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.

"No, I don't think I can," he admitted finally, acknowledging his own limitations where Octavia was concerned.

"Yeah, I know," she said softly, her heart swelling with a fondness she had hitherto only been dimly aware of. "I'll talk to her. Maybe it won't be so bad."

"Fat chance," he said dejectedly, hanging up.

XXXXXXXXXX

Figuring her concentration was shot for the day anyway, Clarke cleaned up her studio, took a shower, and headed out to the sorority house to see Octavia. She'd thought about just calling, but decided that a face-to-face might allow her to better assess why Octavia had chosen to put her privacy-loving brother on display this way.

As she drove across the campus, she wondered when she had become Bellamy's go-to person for all his life problems. Not that she minded. She readily acknowledged that. But it used to be he'd only get in touch with her directly when Octavia was in trouble, and this didn't really qualify as Octavia's problem.

But then, she supposed with a little shock, things had been changing between Bellamy and herself for a while now. He was no longer just _Octavia's older brother/emergency contact_ and he hadn't been for some time.

They were friends in their own right, she and Bellamy. They gravitated toward each other at social gatherings. It was like they... understood each other. They often spoke in a shorthand language of half-sentences, gestures, and pointed looks that the others in their friend group just didn't get.

Clarke shook her head, laughing to herself as she parked the car in the lot closest to Octavia's sorority house and began to walk those last few blocks. Just look how far she and Bellamy had come.

She'd first met Bellamy Blake nearly three years ago. She'd been the RA in Octavia's dorm, a position she'd taken despite her mother's protest that she didn't need the distraction from her own studies. And unlike most RAs, neither did she really need the free room and board or the small stipend that came with the job,

But the thing was that Clarke _liked_ helping people. Sorting out their problems. Finding ways to get them organized and on the right path. And she was good at it. So she'd taken the RA position her senior year and always felt that it had added so much to her college experience.

Octavia Blake had had more problems, more issues, more _stuff_ to be sorted out than the average 19-year-old. A dead mother, a ton of emotional baggage, and an adoring older brother, who was himself in school in a doctoral program a few states away. Octavia had adored him in return, but at the same time resented him deeply for his overprotectiveness.

The first time Clarke met him, she'd left him a message that she wasn't sure Octavia was eating properly, and maybe he could give her a call. Instead, he'd driven two hundred miles in a blind panic, and she'd come home from class to find them screaming at each other in the hallway, Octavia out of resentment and Bellamy out of frustration.

She'd led them to her small room to sort it all out, bewildered by Bellamy's attitude. He was only her _brother_ , for god's sake, not that much older than Clarke herself. She'd expected him to give Octavia a gentle nudge in the right direction, not panic like an archetypical helicopter parent.

She'd thought he was a bit of an ass. A _hot_ ass. An absurdly _gorgeous_ ass. But an ass nonetheless.

It was only after he'd left that Clarke learned why it was that Bellamy Blake was not a typical sibling.

"It was always Bellamy taking care of me, ever since I was little," Octavia had confided, shrugging. "My mom was...unreliable even before she got sick. So maybe," she'd added, her eyes pleading with Clarke, "please don't call him again unless it's really, really important."

"Okay," Clarke had nodded. "But you've gotta eat right and not make me worry about you."

"Agreed," Octavia had said, clearly relieved.

Strangely, the incident had led to the development of a real friendship between the girls. One that had continued uninterrupted, even when had Clarke moved into an apartment after graduation and begun working on her MFA. Even when Octavia had moved into the sorority house.

Clarke couldn't imagine a life that did not, in some way, contain Octavia Blake.

Bellamy had remained something of an enigma, although they'd eventually managed to reach an understanding of sorts through a series of lengthy emails. In the end, Clarke had been gratified that Bellamy trusted her judgment about Octavia enough to avoid further panicked road trips, which had apparently been the norm throughout poor Octavia's freshman year. Bellamy was in turn grateful to Clarke for the personal interest she took in Octavia, like inviting her to Clarke's home for the holidays when Bellamy was too busy to have her visit.

Detente ensued.

But it hadn't been until this year, when he'd been offered the position at Ark U, that she'd gotten to know Bellamy as anything other than Octavia's brother. In typical Octavia fashion, she had been thrilled that Bellamy was going to be close by, and at the same time terrified that he would try to control her life.

But that hadn't happened. Clarke had paid him a visit early on and it was clear that the last thing he'd wanted to do was make Octavia sorry he was around. Unfortunately for Octavia, Clarke had also invited him to trivia night at the bar where he'd been a big hit with their friend group.

In the end, Octavia didn't have to worry about Bellamy trying to control her life. But she did have to deal with him having a front row seat to it.

XXXXXXXXXX

Clarke had visited Octavia plenty of times at the sorority, so she slipped upstairs to knock on her door, then opened it without waiting for an invitation.

As soon as Octavia saw her she groaned.

"He called you, didn't he? I knew he was going to try to get out of it," she fumed.

Clarke perched on the narrow bed, facing Octavia, who sat at her desk, laptop open.

"He won't back out, Octavia, but I still have to ask. What the hell were you thinking? Bellamy, of all people. You know how he values his privacy."

Octavia studied her for a moment, eyes narrowing. "I don't think it's all that much to ask," she said disingenuously. "And after all, all the proceeds are going to charity."

Clarke frowned. "But why does it have to be this type of contest? Why not something else, maybe a trivia contest? I know Bellamy would be happy to participate in that. And this _is_ supposed to be an institution of higher learning, after all."

"Oh, pooh," Octavia waved the suggestion away. "Trivia's been done to death. We wanted something new. Something exciting."

"Okay," Clarke nodded, accepting defeat on that score. "But why ask Bellamy to become involved? I'm sure there are plenty of faculty members who'd be flattered to take part."

"No!" Octavia shook her head. "We need to have the winning PILF because the Sorority/Fraternity Council has promised to match the dollars of the winning candidate. That would double our donation."

"What is your charity?" Clarke asked curiously.

"The city's homeless shelter." Octavia's eyes shifted away from Clarke, and she suddenly wondered if their were things in Octavia's life, in Bellamy's life - sad things perhaps - that she still knew nothing about.

Clarke found herself swallowing past the lump in her throat to say softly, "That's great, Octavia. A worthwhile cause. Plenty of faculty members would be happy to..."

"No! I told you. It _has_ to be Bellamy. After all the time I've spent putting this thing together..." she trailed off, realizing too late perhaps that she'd revealed more than she'd intended.

Clarke was dumbfounded. "Wait a minute! Are you saying you dreamed this whole thing up for the sole purpose of embarrassing your brother?" Try as she might, she couldn't quite keep the accusatory tone out of her voice.

"No! Yes!" Octavia jumped out of her chair and flopped down in the bed beside Clarke. "I'm just so sick of it!"

"Sick of..." Clarke was bewildered but determined to get to the bottom of whatever was driving Octavia.

"Sick of every girl in this house drooling over my brother! When he walks in here, you'd think he was some freaking _movie_ star, the way they fawn all over him. They all keep asking if he's _single_ , if I could put in a good _word_ , if he'd like to come to _dinner_." Her voice rose mincingly with each new purported offense.

"But, Octavia..." she tried to interrupt, but Octavia hadn't finished.

"And it's not just here! The other day, I was at the campus bookstore, and when the clerk ran my card, he said 'Blake? You aren't related to Professor Blake, are you?'. And stupid me, I thought he was going to say what a great teacher Bellamy was, so I said yeah, that's my brother. All ready to be proud. But no! He says to me... "

And here Octavia turned her head so she could look Clarke straight in the eye, presumably to ensure that Clarke absorbed the full impact of what was next to come out of her mouth.

"...he says to me, 'I have that guy for Ancient Civilizations and he's so hot I can hardly concentrate in class. Put me out of my misery and tell me he's gay'. Fuck! Did he think that I _pimp_ for my brother? And in the damn bookstore! I just grabbed my card and ran out."

By the time she stopped to take a breath, Octavia was pretty wound up.

Clarke, on the other hand, was practically speechless. She could feel her jaw opening and closing but nothing seemed to be coming out but tiny, little squeaks.

"Octavia," she said at last, "it's not like Bellamy can help it."

"Oh," Octavia narrowed her eyes at Clarke inquiringly, "do tell."

Clarke felt herself squirming. "Well, I mean, he can't help being, um, you know..."

Octavia raised her brows and Clarke hurried on.

"He can't help being...beautiful."

Octavia looked surprised. "Beautiful? Not _hot_ , or _gorgeous_ , or even," she added with obvious distaste, " _sexy_?"

Clarke swallowed. "Well, yeah, of course, he's all those things. But it's not as if he flaunts himself. He's actually not vain at all."

Octavia studied Clarke for a moment and then said plainly, "He could have just turned me down."

Clarke nodded. "But you know as well as I do that he never would."

"Yep, that's just what I was counting on," Octavia admitted without a trace of shame. "Look, you can tell him you tried, but that it was a _no go_. If my brother's going to attract that much attention, it might just as well do some good. Oh, and tell him I'll be over tomorrow to get his picture."

"His picture?"

"Yeah, you know, for the display. And the website." Octavia paused as if a new possibility had occurred to her. "So are you going to be home tomorrow?"

"Um, should be, yeah. Why?"

Octavia grinned conspiratorially. "Because I may need your help getting my brother just as _beautiful_ as possible. I'll let you know."

Clarke stumbled down the stairs and around the block to her car. She texted Bellamy about Octavia's plan for the following day, all the while wondering how it happened that she'd gone to Octavia's to try to get Bellamy out of this predicament, only to somehow wind up as a member of his PILF management team.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was early the following afternoon when Octavia called from Bellamy's apartment, where she was attempting to ready him for his photograph.

"Calling for reinforcements, Clarke." Annoyance bristled in Octavia's tone. "I'm never gonna be able to get this picture done because he won't listen to anything I say."

"I'm not sure what you think I can do," she began, but Octavia just snorted.

"Come on, Clarke, you're the only person whose opinion he ever pays any attention to."

Clarke hoped Octavia hadn't heard her small involuntary gasp. _Was that really true?_

"So get your ass in gear. I'm on a schedule here." Pure Octavia at her bossiest.

Clarke sighed, but she'd already grabbed her car keys from the hook. "Be right there."

They were both in his bedroom when she arrived, Bellamy sitting on the end of the bed with a mutinous look on his face, and Octavia pacing in front of him, her arms folded across herself in a posture that oozed frustration.

"What's going on here?" Clarke asked, tossing her bag on the floor.

Bellamy whipped his head around, a look of horror on his face. "I'm not wearing any damned makeup!"

Clarke squinted at Octavia, bewildered. "Makeup? Why would you be trying to put makeup on him? I don't think that's the look that will win, Octavia."

Octavia blew out a long breath. "I'm not trying to put him in full makeup, Clarke. I just wanted to use some to cover that little scar on his lip, that's all."

"What? Why would you want to cover up the scar? That's...I mean..."

Both Blakes turned toward her, Bellamy with a look of surprise, Octavia's eyes dancing speculatively.

Clarke struggled to finish her sentence while avoiding phrases like: _Are you crazy? That scar is the sexiest goddamn thing I've ever seen._

As always when backed into a corner, she eventually retreated into command mode.

"No makeup, Octavia. Just put it away. What else did you have in mind?"

Octavia zipped up her makeup case with a dramatic sigh, ungraciously accepting defeat.

"His hair," she said. "Bellamy doesn't seem to understand the concept of _hairstyle_."

Clarke looked him over carefully, conceding that in this instance Octavia might have a point. "Did you bring a pair of scissors?" she asked, eyeing Bellamy's tangled locks.

"Hey, wait a minute," Bellamy tried to protest as Octavia rustled through her bag searching for scissors. "Don't I get any say in this?"

Clarke moved into the space between his knees, smiling down at him. "I promise not to take too much off," she said, running her fingers through his hair.

He looked up and caught her eye, visibly swallowing. Her hand stilled in his hair and Clarke could feel her face heating up as their eyes held for just a beat too long.

"Here they are," Octavia said, handing Clarke the scissors, breaking whatever weird momentary spell they'd been caught up in.

Octavia wrapped a towel around Bellamy's shoulders, and as Clarke began to snip at his hair she could have sworn she heard his breath hitch. But then he stilled completely, for which she was grateful, because any moment she was afraid her hands might begin to shake. A decidedly unhappy prospect while holding a pair of scissors.

The haircut done at last, Clarke stepped gratefully out of Bellamy's personal space. Had she ever been that close to him before? She couldn't remember that she had, and even with Octavia standing right there beside her, Bellamy's nearness had done things to her. Unexpected things.

Bellamy let out a breath very deliberately, but Octavia was nodding in satisfaction. "Much better," she said happily.

"Is that it?" Clarke asked, suddenly feeling like it was imperative that she get the hell out of there.

"Just trying to decide what he should wear." Octavia cast her eye over him uncertainly.

"Uh, I can just put on a shirt and tie," he said. "It's a faculty contest, right? So they'll be expecting a professional look."

"Too boring," Octavia said dismissively, "I was thinking jeans and a muscle shirt."

Bellamy gaped. "I don't even _own_ a muscle shirt."

"No," Clarke said suddenly. "You're both wrong. Which drawer for the sweaters, Bellamy," she asked, quickly moving to his dresser.

"Second."

Clarke searched through the pile of neatly-folded sweaters, finally finding the one she had in mind. Remembering clearly when he'd worn it to the most recent trivia night, a smile on his face as his hand lifted to high-five her after the two of them had won.

"Put this on," she said, handing him the charcoal-gray V-neck. "You can wear it with those jeans."

Bellamy shrugged and nodded, but Octavia looked unconvinced. "You think?"

"You should trust me on this, Octavia," she said, knowing that she was right. And that she could never explain why.

Bellamy changed shirts quickly, unconcerned about their presence. After a quick, mind-blowing peek, Clarke tried to look anywhere but at his amazingly sculpted body.

 _Shit! That's what he looks like under those shirts and ties?_

As Bellamy settled the sweater over his body, Clarke picked up her bag, praying that her presence was no longer required.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Octavia asked her testily.

"Aren't we done?" Clarke felt an urgent need to get back to her own place and think.

"I still have to take the picture," Octavia said, pulling out her phone. "I need to print one out for the Student Union display and also upload it to the website. Come on," she waved Clarke back to her side. "I could use some help."

Strangely, the picture-taking proved to be the most challenging part of the afternoon. It wasn't that Bellamy wasn't photogenic, because he was. Astonishingly so. But Octavia couldn't seem to catch exactly the right attitude. Exactly the right look.

She wanted neither a full-on grin nor a sober expression, but something in between. Something that would convey the real Bellamy Blake. After several minutes of failure, Octavia tried to thrust her phone at Clarke - "after all, you're the artist" - but Clarke was still afraid her hands would start shaking any moment, and refused. So Octavia moved around the room, continuing to snap, striving for the right shot.

Clarke didn't notice when Octavia stepped behind her. By that point, she was hard-pressed to notice anything other than Bellamy sitting on the end of his bed, one leg propped across the other, patiently waiting for Octavia to finish the photos so she could continue with the process of publicly humiliating him.

"You're being a really good sport about this," she said finally.

Bellamy shrugged. "Thanks for helping, Clarke. You're always riding in to save the Blakes from their own idiocy."

Clarke smiled at him fondly. "It's my pleasure."

"I hope so," Bellamy said, giving her a look of such unutterable sweetness that Clarke felt her heart thump in response.

"Got it," Octavia said softly.

XXXXXXXXXX

Clarke had pretty much decided it might be best to stay away from both the Student Union display and the PILF website. Because the last thing she wanted to do was to make things _weird_ between Bellamy and her.

She was certain that the the only reason for this sudden, intense - and entirely unwelcome - awareness of Bellamy Blake in a more _physical_ sense was the result of her being forced to think of him as... well... as a _PILF_. It had temporarily thrown her. Once the stupid contest was over, things would get back to normal, and she could revert to that safe space where Bellamy was her very good friend, as well as the best trivia partner ever.

But when Octavia called two days later, Clarke found that like many plans, this one was not destined to go smoothly.

"Where the hell have you been?" Octavia said, as soon as she picked up.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't been by the Student Union display even once! I'm not asking you to make a donation, but you could at _least_ show Bellamy a little support!"

"How...how could you possibly know that? That I haven't been there?" Clarke asked, feeling absurdly guilty.

"Because every house is required to have a member on site to, you know, accept donations. It's my shift right now. The sisters all know you, Clarke, and no one's seen you."

Octavia actually sounded hurt, but a straightforward explanation was out of the question. So Clarke did what she did best. She prevaricated.

"I really needed to work on putting the final touches on my portfolio." True, except she hadn't even picked up a brush in two days.

"This apartment was an ungodly mess and needed a lot of TLC." Also true. And it still did.

"Mom was insisting I come for a visit." True, again. And Abby was still calling every day, asking when her daughter might find some time for her.

Octavia sighed, accepting those half-truths at face value. "But you will come?"

"I was actually planning on making a quick visit today," Clarke lied, hurriedly pulling on her jeans and slipping into her sandals. "See you in a few minutes."

It wasn't hard to find the PILF contest display, since there were signs pointing to it at every Student Union entrance. A surprisingly large number of both students and faculty were milling about, all apparently having a good time. Clarke hoped that the contest would bring in a whole lot of donations to the various charities.

She found Octavia sitting behind a long table that had been set up for the 15 sororities and fraternities that were taking part in the contest. Behind her, the name of her house, Omicron Beta, was written in giant lettering, along with their charity, the city's homeless shelter.

Towering above the names of the sponsors and the charities were the names and pictures of the contestants, directly under the words, "PILF Contest."

As she waited for Octavia to finish up with another donor, Clarke finally glanced up at the picture of Assistant Professor Bellamy Blake, and her breath hitched. She'd been right about the hair, and the sweater, and leaving his scar alone, but it wasn't just that. The expression on his face, the look in his eyes, both were strangely compelling. They had a depth of feeling rarely found in posed photographs.

"Pretty good shot, if I do say so myself," Octavia grinned, seeing where Clarke's eyes were focused. "I'm glad I waited until just the right moment."

"I guess you must have," Clarke said, shaking her head in amazement that Octavia had managed to capture such a picture.

As Clarke put down her bag and pulled out her wallet, Octavia looked at her strangely. "You don't remember exactly when I took that picture, do you?" she asked, her expression wry.

In truth, Clarke had spent so much time thinking about that entire afternoon in Bellamy's bedroom that it had eventually become just one big blur. "Not really," she said candidly.

Octavia rolled her eyes in disbelief and then protested a bit when Clarke handed her a some cash. "Fifty dollars? That's too much, Clarke."

Clarke just shrugged. She was lucky that her mother paid her tuition, and her rent, and even gave her a small allowance. So she didn't have to work while taking classes, and she wouldn't be saddled with a ton of debt when she graduated. But she also didn't really have much more cash than the rest of them, and both Blakes knew that.

"It's fine, Octavia. Cross your fingers that I'll get that job at the museum when I finish my degree."

"Until you become a world-famous artist," Octavia grinned.

"Yeah, until then," Clarke agreed, smiling.

She checked behind her and seeing no one waiting in line, Clarke bent toward Octavia conspiratorially.

"So, I've been wondering," she said, her voice pitched so that only Octavia could hear. "How did you get the big guns to let you use this building, anyway? I mean...a _PILF contest_? Everyone knows what a MILF is, so it wouldn't be too hard to substitute 'professor' for the 'P' and come up with," she lowered her voice still more, "professor I'd like to fuck."

Octavia grinned cheekily in what Clarke always referred to as "demon Octavia" mode.

"Apparently the dean is the one person on this campus who had _not_ heard the term MILF. So when he asked what the acronym stood for, I just told him it was 'Professor I'll love forever.' He thought it was admirable that we wanted to remember our favorite teachers with charitable donations."

The bark of laughter was pulled from Clarke, and soon she was doubled over, grabbing onto the table to keep herself upright.

"Looks like you're enjoying yourself," said a familiar voice. Regrettably, it was not _happily_ familiar.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, her laughter dying abruptly as her eyes skimmed over Finn Collins's still-boyish good looks. The Finn she knew - and had once unhappily dated - was not the kind to throw bucks in the way of a charity event.

"I'm in this contest," he said breezily, nodding to a girl sitting a few spots further down the table who waved and smiled at him shyly.

When Clarke looked up to see his portrait grinning down at them she wanted to puke.

Finn's brow wrinkled as though suddenly considering that there might be a reason why she was standing in that particular spot.

"Do you know...ah...Professor Blake?" he asked. "I didn't really think ancient history was your thing." When he winked at her, as though they shared some private joke, Clarke wondered what the hell she'd ever seen in him.

She frowned. "Maybe you remember my friend _Octavia_ Blake." Octavia smirked at him, and Clarke could almost see the wheels turning as he finally made the connection.

"Oh, yeah," Finn said, his broad grin returning. "For a minute there I was afraid you had a personal interest in Blake."

"What makes you think I don't?" she shot back immediately, as Octavia giggled quietly behind her.

"You thinking of contributing to my lead, Collins?" a new voice asked, and Clarke looked up in horror to see Bellamy standing not two feet away. She prayed he hadn't overheard her attempt to taunt the smugness off Finn's face.

Finn acknowledged him with a nod. "Blake. Who says you're in the lead?"

Bellamy shrugged, and pulled out his phone. "The website keeps track of donations and so far the homeless shelter has the most. So, yeah, I guess I'm in the lead," he reiterated, as Octavia pumped her hand in the air and gave a loud "Who hoo!"

Finn's confident smile returned in a flash. "It's early days yet. Anything might happen."

Bellamy pasted on a smile of his own, one that Clarke would swear she'd never seen before, and she became a little afraid of what he might say. Octavia had known about Finn, of course, about his cheating, and his betrayal, so she supposed there was a chance she'd have told Bellamy. But Clarke had never even considered that the men might have met. Might even be - broadly speaking - colleagues.

But all Bellamy said was, "So, Collins, any idea when you might meet with your committee?"

A normal, casual question between two academics, she'd have thought. Innocuous. Nothing about it to make Finn's face close up and his shoulders hunch defensively,

"Um, yeah, what did you finally decide to call your dissertation?" Clarke asked pleasantly.

It took some effort, but she tried her best to sound like she actually gave a damn. But her interest seemed to increase the sudden tension that enveloped Finn. Which made little sense, since the one thing Finn Collins was always happy to talk about was...Finn Collins.

"Something about Texas cheerleaders, wasn't it?" Bellamy tossed out with a smirk.

"There are no cheerleaders involved." Finn's voice was tight. "It's a study of the connection between the gun culture of Texas, their debutante balls, and, uh, high school football. I call it 'Gats, Gals, and Friday Night Lights'," he added, conspicuously pleased by his own cleverness.

Clarke felt her mouth go slack, and behind her, she heard Octavia snort.

But Bellamy just nodded. "Best of luck with that," he said, and if Clarke didn't know him as well as she did she might have even thought he was sincere.

Finn looked at him suspiciously, but he was called away to his own table just then and left them with a final nod. Clarke was more than relieved to see him go.

"What are you doing here, Bellamy?" she asked directly, as soon as Finn was out of earshot. "I thought you hated this whole idea."

Bellamy shrugged. "I figure if I have to do it, I might as well be all in. Octavia said if the contestants showed up occasionally, it might, uh, boost the donations."

"And are you really in the lead?"

This time his grin was sincere. "So far, but like your ex said, anything can happen."

"Bellamy..."

"Hey, I'm sorry if I came on a little bit too strong. Maybe you still have feelings for the guy?" He cocked his brow and seemed to hold his breath waiting for her response.

"God, no," she said, shaking her head decidedly. "But what the hell was going on with his dissertation?"

Octavia grinned. "Gats, Gals, and Friday Night Lights. I can hardly wait to read it."

"Well, that's just it," Bellamy said, smirking. "Who knows if you ever will? Collins hasn't been able to find a job in an anthropology department anywhere, so he's held off defending his dissertation and he's just hanging on here as an instructor. In fact," his eyes narrowed, "how does he even get to be in this contest? There's no 'professor' anywhere in his job title."

Octavia rolled her eyes. "He teaches some classes, so he qualifies. We're just trying to make money for charity here, big brother, so don't be a dick. Besides, he is a pretty cute guy," she added, "even if he is an asshole."

Clarke laughed. Somehow, she felt better than she had in days. Maybe she should go home now and try to get some work done.

And then all three of them spoke at once.

"I probably should get going," Clarke said with a smile, turning towards the table to pick up her bag.

"Clarke, can I talk to you for a minute?" Bellamy asked, reaching out for her arm.

"Oh, shit, Clarke, I knew there was something else I needed to tell you," Octavia said, her voice rising to near panic as she glanced behind Bellamy and saw someone approaching.

"Hello, Clarke," a new voice spoke, cool and brittle.

Clarke turned quickly. "Lexa," she breathed, nearly dropping her bag.

XXXXXXXXXX

Clarke wondered what the odds were of her running into not one but _two_ of her exes within the space of fifteen minutes. She might be tempted do some research when she had the time, but at the moment she had other fish to fry. She opened her mouth to confront her most recent ex-lover, just as Lexa turned to Bellamy.

"Assistant Professor Bellamy Blake, I believe," she said, in that tone that had somehow always irked Clarke. The one that brooked no disagreement. The one that said that if by some chance he _weren't_ actually Bellamy Blake, there would be hell to pay.

Bellamy's brow rose, but he briefly accepted Lexa's proffered hand. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," he said pleasantly.

Clarke had always understood when life needed her to intervene.

"This is Lexa von Wald, Bellamy," Clarke explained, watching carefully as he tried to control the expression of distaste that threatened to overtake his countenance.

Bellamy had never met Lexa, but Clarke knew he sure as hell must have heard about her. Their relationship - hers and Lexa's - had imploded just about the time that Bellamy had hit campus and become a part of her friend group. And Clarke expected that what he _had_ heard about Lexa had not been anything that could even remotely be considered flattering.

"I understand you are a rising star in the history department, Professor Blake," Lexa said, her tone oddly formal, her expression just slightly condescending. "Perhaps you won't be forced to languish in your assistant professor slot for too long. Some of us are fortunate enough to make the switch to the tenure track at a faster pace than the rest."

Clarke knew the exact moment that Bellamy began to lose the fight to conceal his antipathy. It looked like further intervention would be required.

"Lexa is a rising star herself, Bellamy, only in the math department. Or perhaps she's already risen. Did you win that Fields Medal yet, Lexa?" she asked, turned towards her ex.

"You know very well that the Fields Medal is given only every four years, Clarke," Lexa reminded her without heat. "The awards aren't due until next year."

"Well, I have every expectation that you'll do Ark University proud," Bellamy said, but Clarke had caught the glint in his eye. He'd just made mincemeat of Finn Collins, and Clarke preferred not to think about the gore that might flow if he tried the same tactics with Lexa.

"So what are you doing here, Lexa?" she asked hurriedly.

As she turned back to Clarke, Lexa's face softened and she gave her a slight smile. "Why do you think, Clarke? I'm here for the contest."

 _Shit!_ Lexa couldn't _possibly_ have meant that the way it sounded..

"For...the contest? As a...as a..."

"Why, as a contestant, of course." Lexa's smile widened.

As a contestant. Of fucking _course_ she was. Clarke just knew she was the only person in the universe who could end up with two ex-lovers both competing in the same goddamned PILF contest. Assuming there were any other PILF contests _in_ the universe, of course.

"Huh. I gotta say I'm a little surprised, Lexa. It doesn't sound like you at all." She couldn't have resisted the gibe if she'd tried. Which she hadn't.

Lexa bristled immediately. If she'd had tail feathers, they'd have been ruffling all over the place. "Are you implying that I'm not attractive enough for this competition, Clarke."

Clarke rolled her eyes. "Hardly. I think I was saying that I wouldn't have thought you'd be interested in a contest that was based on looks, and not on intellectual pursuits."

Lexa shrugged. "The fraternity offered to make donations to the inner-city STEM program. And competition of any sort is always...stimulating."

Lexa's head shifted just the slightest towards Bellamy then, and for the first time her air of perfect confidence seemed to waver ever so slightly.

"So, are you a part of Professor Blake's team then, Clarke?" Lexa asked it in such an offhand manner that anyone who didn't know her as well as Clarke did might not have realized that she was very much interested in the answer.

"You remember my friend Octavia, Lexa," Clarke said vaguely, although she wasn't really sure that Lexa would have any recollection of Octavia at all. "Her brother Bellamy is a friend now, too."

"Of course," Lexa nodded, ignoring Octavia and continuing to scrutinize Bellamy. After a moment, she cocked her head at Clarke as though she expected additional information, but Clarke did not intend to oblige her. Her life was no longer any of Lexa's business.

"I must go," Lexa said suddenly, with the air of someone who had important places to be immediately. "It was...good to see you, Clarke."

"I'm glad we had this chance meet, Professor von Wald," Bellamy told her solemnly, if not sincerely. "Good luck with the Fields Medal."

"Luck will have nothing to do with it, Professor Blake. Good luck with the contest."

Bellamy nodded, smirking. "May the best PILF win."

"Oh, I'm very certain that she will," Lexa said, turning on her heel and heading across the room.

Silence filled the vacuum left by Lexa's sudden departure. Neither Blake said a single word while Clarke puzzled over how strange it was that she could have gained so much perspective in such a short period of time. She'd struggled for months before finally breaking up with Lexa, but now she wondered how they'd lasted even as long as they had.

Eventually, a couple of giggling students approached the table with their donations, demanding Octavia's attention.

Bellamy immediately gave Clarke's arm a gentle tug. "Can I talk to you, Clarke?"

She recalled that he'd asked her that same question a few minutes earlier, just before Lexa had arrived. But while she'd been cheerful then, willing - maybe even happy - to have a conversation with Bellamy, somewhere in the last few minutes Clarke had begun to feel like a fool.

Had it really been necessary for the gods of karma, in one short 30-minute period, to hit her upside the head with unpleasant reminders of her two most disastrous relationships? And worse, did her wreck of a personal life really need to be laid bare with Bellamy Blake looking on from the bleachers?

Maybe Finn could have been seen as a mistake, an aberration. But after that confrontation with Lexa, it was suddenly more than apparent to Clarke that she was _fucking awful_ at choosing romantic partners.

She shook her head in dismay. "I really don't feel like talking right now."

"Okay." Bellamy nodded, but she could see the disappointment in his eyes. "Are you all right?"

Clarke shrugged. "I will be," she said, and honestly hoped it was true.

XXXXXXXXXX

After her humiliating encounters at the Student Union, Clarke dove back into her plan of avoiding Bellamy until the PILF contest was over, certain that whatever was making her heart unexpectedly ache with longing would disappear when things eventually returned to 'normal'.

She had never realized how much of her day had been spent in regular communication with Bellamy Blake, nor how many hours she ordinarily spent in his company. If there hadn't been a continuous stream of texts, emails, and phone calls shooting back and forth between them, it was only because they were hanging out in comfortable companionship, having been left high and dry by all their coupled-up friends.

And that wasn't even counting trivia night, where their team were the undisputed champs.

But now she found excuse after excuse to avoid his calls and his company, and it just about killed her to cancel on trivia night two weeks in a row. The first week, she could hear the disappointment in his voice. When she bailed again the following week, he barely said anything at all.

She was denying herself all those pleasant hours now, and it had left a huge hole in her life.

As she neared the end of her second Bellamy-less week, as well as the end of the contest, Clarke was forced to admit that it was more than than just the activities she missed, more than just the company. She missed the man. She missed Bellamy.

She missed his pedantic professorial manner while he lectured them all on some obscure point of history about which no one else really gave a fuck.

She missed his after-a-few-drinks silliness, the unexpected side of Bellamy that she'd been so delighted to find lurking beneath that slightly stuffy exterior.

She missed his earnestness, and his caring, and his insistence on making sure that everyone wrapped up tight on cold days, and hydrated properly in hot days, and never, ever thought about getting behind the wheel if they'd been drinking.

Getting to know Bellamy had been like peeling back an onion. Every time she thought she knew everything about him, she'd find there was another layer to uncover. And Clarke had liked them all.

She'd known all along that he was attractive, of course. She had eyes. And a brain. So she really couldn't have missed it. And even if she'd been infected by a sudden case of willful blindness, she couldn't have blocked out the constant speculative looks he got from men and women alike whenever they were hanging out in public.

But none of that had mattered. His beauty was just a part of him, like his penchant for collecting arcane facts and his aversion to haircuts.

Until the day that it had. Mattered. Until she'd stood between his knees snipping away at those black curls, and their eyes had held, and her heart had tripped, and her breath had caught, and she suddenly had to get the hell out of there.

With every fiber of her being, Clarke was convinced that it was just this fucking PILF insanity, and she was determined to wait out the madness.

When she saw Octavia's name flash across her screen on the last day of the contest, Clarke assumed that Octavia was making one of her update phone calls about the status of the donations. All along, Bellamy had been one of the top earners, and now it looked like he might actually win.

Octavia was thrilled. It couldn't hurt Bellamy's career to be seen as popular with students and faculty ( _erm_ , as long as the dean never cottoned on to exactly what _kind_ of popularity those donations actually represented). And Octavia would get her matching funds for the homeless center. A win all the way around.

"You have to come to the finale tonight at the Student Union," Octavia insisted. And she persisted when Clarke began to make excuses. "Come on, Clarke, we've barely seen you lately. You've gotta get down here and see Bell's moment of triumph."

Clarke couldhear the grin in her voice, and she hadn't seen them in ages, and dammit! She fucking _missed_ Bellamy. What difference could a few hours matter, anyway? The PILF contest would be over soon and her usual round of activities could resume.

"Okay," she said, her body immediately beginning to tingle with excitement. "Save me a spot."

XXXXXXXXXX

Octavia had told her that the contest had generated a lot of interest, and if the sheer number of bodies that were packed into the display room was any indication, she hadn't been exaggerating. At this point, though, it looked like the donations had pretty much stopped rolling in, and that the good-natured crowd was just waiting around to see who won.

Octavia waved her over to the table where she was seated, having managed to save Clarke exactly one square foot of standing room right next to her. Clarke was excited to see that according to the digital displays Bellamy was still in the lead. Octavia's sorority sisters were quietly quivering with excitement.

"Clarke!"

She heard his voice before she saw him. He was a only few feet away, weaving his way through the crowd to reach her side.

"I had no idea you were coming," he said, grinning at her easily.

And Clarke said...nothing at all. Because words seemed so utterly pointless. Her first glimpse of Bellamy in nearly two weeks, and she knew it had all been for naught. Even after the premiere PILF had been chosen, nothing between Bellamy and her was ever going to be "normal" again.

He was dressed in the charcoal V-neck, the same one she'd chosen for his picture, and just looking at him made her hands clammy and her lips tingle. When he saw that she'd noted his attire, Bellamy shrugged.

"I figure it's my lucky sweater," he said, smiling down at her. "It seems to have helped bring in a lot of donations."

Clarke couldn't have stopped the answering smile that tugged at her lips if she'd Velcroed them together.

"I've missed you," he said, as though the words just fell out of his mouth.

Before she could even consider how to reply to that statement, all hell suddenly broke loose right in front of them. A half-dozen of Octavia's sorority sisters were gesticulating wildly and whispering furiously, as she tried to shush them all.

"It's true," the youngest-looking one insisted staunchly, her arms folded across her chest. "I heard it from my boyfriend's cousin, who has chem lab with the sister of one of the guys who had to kick in for his buddy. All because the stupid buddy can't write a damned paper."

"What paper?" Clarke asked quickly, inserting herself into the fray. "Whose buddy? What the hell are you talking about?"

At this pointed interrogation, the girl seemed to waver a bit.

"I-I don't know all the names but it must be true." She indicated the tally board. "Look at the totals for Mr. Collins. He was way behind Professor Blake and suddenly they can't keep up with recording the donations!" she finished indignantly.

Clarke glanced over at the tabulations for Finn's charity and found to her amazement that his total had suddenly ballooned by several hundred dollars. Putting him well ahead of Bellamy and taking over the lead. With only a few minutes left to go, there was little they could do to rally, although the sorority members went on a mad scramble through their purses, no doubt hoping to find buried treasure.

"What exactly did you hear about Mr. Collins," Clarke asked the girl curiously.

The girl's shoulders twitched in disgust, "There was some big anthro paper due today, and everyone heard about how Mr. Collins was offering his help to anyone who could cough up a hundred bucks for his charity. Most of the guys don't have that much extra money lying around, so they leaned on their friends to come up with the cash. I heard five people took him up on his offer," she finished with a sniff.

Five people. Clarke glanced over at the tally screens again, and as far as she could tell Finn's total had suddenly increased by just about five hundred dollars.

That cheating sonofabitch! A move like that would certainly be right in character.

"Was the anthro paper for a course Mr. Collins teaches?"

When the girl shook her head, Clarke knew the whole scam was going to be nearly impossible to prove. Certainly not in the few minutes they had left before the end of the contest. After that, who was ever going to bother to check into it?

When she glanced down the table and saw Finn's smug grin, Clarke wanted to slap it right off his face. He caught her eye and tossed her a lazy salute. Clarke responded with a one-fingered salute of her own, turning away in disgust.

Bellamy shrugged, unbothered. "He's an asshole, Clarke. What the hell does it matter? What counts is that we've raised a lot of money for the homeless."

And Clarke knew that was the right attitude, knew that the contest itself was utterly meaningless. But it still made her blood boil because she also knew damn well that somewhere down the line, Finn Collins was going to dine out on winning this contest. Use it to advance his personal agenda. Because that was exactly his style.

Her fertile brain was still conceiving and rejecting ideas for bagging Finn when a flurry of activity at the other end of the room caught their attention. Clarke would have bet where it was coming from before she even turned her head in that direction.

"Congratulations, Professor von Wald," she heard someone say. Perhaps it was the dean, or the head of the Sorority/Fraternity Council, or whoever the hell was moderating the contest. Clarke couldn't really be sure. But she caught Lexa's response immediately.

"Yes, these last unexpected donations are very gratifying," Lexa said cooly, "and they do seem to have put me over the top."

Clarke's eyes narrowed with suspicion when she heard Lexa's words. _Last unexpected donations?_ Nothing in Lexa's life was _ever_ unexpected. Everything was planned down to the last olive in her salad. So how the hell...

Clarke's ruminations were interrupted by Octavia, who had another of her sorority sisters in tow.

"Clarke, this is Lucy. Go ahead, Lucy. Tell her what you just told me."

"Uh, it was just what Patrick texted me," Lucy began.

"Patrick?"

"My boyfriend."

Clarke nodded. "Okay. What did Patrick say?"

"Well, he's a senior. A math major. And, um, some of the TAs in his department - well, all of them, really - were overheard complaining how they'd been coerced into making a _donation_ to Professor von Wald's charity. Um, they all were pissed as hell and one of them wanted to bring it to the department head, but the rest of them talked her out of it because, um..."

"Because Lexa - er, Professor von Wald - is a big fucking deal in the math department."

Lucy nodded unhappily. "Yeah, that's about it. I wasn't sure if I should say anything. I mean...I know you used to date her," she added, all in a rush.

"No," Clarke said. "You did the right thing."

"I always knew she was a self-centered bitch," Octavia hmphed, and her nose twitched as if she were smelling something unpleasant. "I just don't see how there's anything we can do about it."

For one little minute, Clarke felt completely numb. First Finn...and now _Lexa?_ What the fuck kind of people had she been dating? She gave herself about five seconds to hold a tiny pity party and then her blood began to boil.

Two people she had dated - no, dammit! Two people she had thought she _loved_ \- had turned out to be cheats and liars who shoved ethics aside to win a stupid fucking contest!

And she just wasn't going to stand for it.

Clarke looked up at the tally boards. Finn's scheme had pushed his total ahead of Bellamy by a couple of hundred dollars, but Lexa had really pulled out all the stops. According to the digital readout, she now topped Finn Collins by over four hundred dollars, and was nearly seven hundred ahead of Bellamy.

She glanced over at the wall clock, the old-fashioned analog kind found on the walls of every large institution. _Five minutes until the contest closed._

It wasn't really even a conscious decision. Clarke's hand just kind of slipped into her bag as she asked Octavia hurriedly, "Do you accept checks?"

Octavia's brow wrinkled. "Well, I guess, sure, why not..."

Her hand closed over what she'd been searching for. Her apartment might be a disaster, but Clarke Griffin was meticulous about her finances. She quickly opened her checkbook.

 _$954.27_. That was everything she had, everything that was supposed to last her until any paychecks could start rolling in. But that wouldn't be until September, and this was April. She didn't pay her own rent, but every other expense she had for the next five months had to come out of those funds.

 _Well, fuck it!_

Clarke laughed, suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer recklessness of what she was about to do. She pulled out a pen, and her hand moved quickly across the paper as she made out a check for $954, payable to the Ark City Homeless Shelter. _In for a penny in for a pound,_ she told herself. She wondered briefly, idly, what she might possibly be able to buy with the 27 cents she'd left in her account.

She looked up anxiously. _Two minutes on the clock_.

"Here, Octavia," she said, practically throwing the check at her. "Take this up to the dean so he can add it to Bellamy's tally."

Octavia looked at the check and her eyes widened, and for just a heartbeat she stood stock still.

"Clarke, what the hell have you done?" Bellamy asked, blank-faced, finally catching on.

But she ignored him in favor of lighting a fire under his sister.

"Get a move on, Octavia! Before it's too late!"

 _One minute on the clock_

Octavia pitched forward, practically running across the room to hand the check to the dean, who checked the time and nodded. Within seconds, the tally readout under the picture of Assistant Professor Bellamy Blake began to rise rapidly until it stood nearly two hundred dollars higher than the total under the picture of Associate Professor Lexa von Wald.

Clarke could hear Lexa's sputtering from halfway across the room, and then the rising star of the Ark University mathematics department walked rapidly out the door, her light, for the moment, eclipsed. From his spot several places along the table, Finn Collins gave Clarke a sardonic smile and a metaphorical tip of his hat.

Bellamy was suddenly right next to her, a tight expression on his face. Before he could say a word, though, the dean was announcing the winner.

"The prize for the, uh, most popular PILF," he said with a gracious smile, "goes to one of our newest faculty members, Bellamy Blake. Come on up, Professor Blake."

Amid the cover of squeals and cheers from Octavia's sorority sisters, and enthusiastic applause from the crowd, Clarke turned hurriedly to make her escape. Because it had suddenly occurred to her - and it was a mystery how she'd somehow failed to previously consider this - that by donating every cent she had so that her _good friend_ could win what amounted to a totally pointless beauty contest, she might have given away more than just money.

She might have just told the entire world how she felt about Bellamy Blake.

"Clarke! Where the hell do you think you're going?"

She'd cleared the crowd nearest the table when she heard Bellamy calling to her, but she put her head down and figured that with a little luck she could still make a clean getaway.

Until she felt his hand on her arm.

"Clarke! Please stop."

Just then two other voices called out from the display area.

"Professor Blake! I need you front and center," the dean was insisting, his expression perplexed.

"Bellamy, don't you think you should go," she whispered, her face flaming, but Bellamy's grip only tightened.

And then came Octavia's bewildered, " _Bell?"_

Bellamy sighed, turning toward his sister and raising his voice just enough that he could be heard over the crowd. "You go ahead and accept the prize for me, O. I've got something more important to do."

Clarke gasped in dismay, but Bellamy had already begun to propel her through the crowd until finally they were out of the room and out of the building.

"I think we need to have a talk," he said, letting go of her arm as they reached the grassy area that flanked the Student Union.

"Okay," she said with a soft sigh. She might just as well just get it over with. Clarke led Bellamy to a bench near a quieter corner of the building, and they sat side by side, shrouded in shadow by the April twilight.

Clarke opened her mouth, prepared to apologize for embarrassing him with her impulsive behavior. Hoping against hope that their friendship could be salvaged.

She never got the chance.

"Clarke, do you like me?" Bellamy asked suddenly, his expression earnest, his tone direct.

Clarke gaped at him. "Of course I like you, Bellamy! We...we're friends."

But he was shaking his head. "That's not what I meant...and I think you know that."

Clarke felt her face heat, and she wanted to look away, but there was something about the tic in his jaw and the rigidity of his shoulders that compelled her to lock eyes with him.

"Um...I guess...that depends," she said evasively, her voice low.

"Depends on what?" he pushed, but at her answer his shoulders had seemed to soften and his jaw relax just a bit. And it almost looked to Clarke like a smile might be playing around the corners of his mouth.

"Well...I guess on what you want me to say. I mean, I could say _no_ , and we could pretend this conversation never happened. Or...maybe...I could say _yes..._ "

"That would be my preference," he interrupted immediately, his lips now curving very definitely into a smile. "I did think from your extremely large donation that I must at least be your favorite PILF."

"Um, are you implying that you're...the _professor I'd like to fuck_?" she asked, her pulse leaping and her embarrassment beginning to fade.

"Well," he said, his voice soft as he lifted a large hand to cup her cheek, "I certainly would be in favor of that idea, but I think I might actually prefer the alternate definition."

"Oh." Clarke suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe. "Alternate as in... _professor I'll love forever?"_

"That's the one," Bellamy agreed, bending his head to slide his lips across her own.

"I think that can be arranged," she said. It was her last coherent thought for quite a long time.

It was a quiet corner of the campus, a place unlikely to attract many passersby, but if any did chance to drift in their direction, they would have had a front row seat to the spectacle of Ark U's prize-winning PILF making out very enthusiastically with his most ardent supporter.

XXXXXXXXXX

The PILF contest turned out to be such a success in raising heaps of money for charity that it was decided to run it again the following year. Happily, the dean never did learn the true meaning of that slightly racy acronym.

Assistant Professor Bellamy Blake declined to participate for a second year, declaring forcefully that he had already discharged that particular duty in his quest to be a good brother. His girlfriend, the newest junior curator at the Ark City Art Museum, had mixed feelings about his decision. On the one hand, Clarke was happy not to have the entire campus ogling a picture of her sexy boyfriend for weeks. But on the other hand, those PILF fantasies always made for a lot of very hot sex.

Finn Collins did not participate either, because he was no longer a member of the Ark U faculty. His dissertation had eventually been finished, after being renamed 'A Study of the Gun Culture in West Texas'. Finn took the name change philosophically, especially when he was finally offered a position in the anthropology department of an obscure college in...West Texas. His last purchase before he left town was a ten-gallon hat.

Lexa von Wald was not asked to participate the second year. The TAs in the mathematics department had found subtle ways to undermine the Professor and her star had become a bit tarnished.

That fall, all the names of the quadrennial Fields Medal winners were published in the university newspaper. Professor Lexa von Wald was not among them.

Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake threw a party.


End file.
